At present, when prescribing drugs at domestic hospitals or pharmacies, pharmacists prescribe the drugs in accordance with prescriptions issued by doctors. In order to prevent a prescribing error, a plurality of pharmacists check if a kind of drug and its quantity they are about to prescribe to a patient are identical with the kind of drug and its quantity described in the prescription.
However, it is difficult to prevent human errors completely even if checking is performed by a plurality of pharmacists. Thus, measures to prevent prescribing errors have been demanded. In view of this, it is obliged to print a bar code on a rear surface of a PTP packaging body, whereby the use of such a bar code is expected to prevent prescribing errors.
In general, 10 or 12 tablets are stored in a single PTP packaging body. If the number of tablets prescribed to a patient corresponds to a multiple, such as twice or triple, of the number of the tablets stored in the PTP packaging body, a plurality of PTP packaging bodies can be simply prescribed to the patient. In such a case, the bar code labeled on the PTP packaging body can be utilized.
If the number of tablets prescribed to a patient does not correspond to a multiple of the number of the tablets stored in the PTP packaging body, on the other hand, the drug is prescribed to the patient after the PTP packaging body is divided. In general, only one bar code is printed on a PTP packaging body. Therefore, if the PTP packaging body is divided, the divided PTP packaging body often has no bar code. Thus, the bar code cannot be used to prevent prescribing errors.
Thus, in order to solve the above-described problem arising when a PTP packaging body is divided, it is contemplated that a bar code is printed on each of areas corresponding to tablet storing parts in a sealing film of the PTP packaging body.
Gravure printing is typically employed to print a bar code on a PTP packaging body. The gravure printing is a printing method to perform printing on a printing substrate by feeding an ink to cells provided on a surface of a gravure printing roll and transferring the ink to the printing substrate.
Patent Literature 1 proposes a halftone gravure printing plate in which a crossing angle between a right oblique array direction and a left oblique array direction of cells from highlight to shadow is 90 degrees and a crossing angle between the right oblique array direction and a doctor contact line direction has a tilt smaller or larger than 45 degrees by a predetermined angle. In this halftone gravure printing plate, as a result of a laser exposure scan, a cell with a dot percent less than 31% has a shape elongated in a direction perpendicular to the doctor contact line direction, a cell with a dot percent equal to 56% is a rhombus cell, and a cell with a dot percent in a range from 31% to less than 56% has a hollowed rhombus ring shape having an outer peripheral profile same as that of the aforementioned cell with 56%. One of diagonal directions in the aforementioned cells from 31% to 56% is set to be the direction perpendicular to the doctor contact line direction and gradually increasing according to tint gradation levels.